A Cold War-era luxury bunker buried nearly three stories beneath a Las Vegas home has a new owner: Zak Bagans, the Ghost Adventures host, who paid $4.55 million for the property known as the Underground House. Bagans announced the purchase from the Stasis Foundation, an organization known for its work in cryogenic human preservation, and says he plans to turn the long-hidden mansion into a public museum.
Bagans paid $4.55 million to the Stasis Foundation for the roughly 16,000-square-foot property, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He plans to open it to the public for the first time, a move that would end nearly five decades of near-total privacy for the hidden estate at 3970 Spencer Street. Bagans said the house is one of the most historic houses ever built in America and the only preserved luxury bunker of its kind still standing in the country.
A Billionaire's Bunker Built for Comfort, Not Just Survival
The Underground House was completed in 1978 by Avon executive and philanthropist Girard “Jerry” Henderson and his wife, Mary, who helped build it, the outlet reports. Designer Jay Swayze, who had earlier created the Underground World Home exhibited at the 1964 New York World's Fair, was behind the project. The couple lived full-time in the underground structure from 1978 until Henderson's death, according to the UNLV Special Collections archive.
Though engineered to withstand a nuclear blast, the shelter was designed as anything but spartan. It includes two hot tubs, a sauna and an in-ground pool, alongside painted skies, murals, faux landscaping and waterfalls. Lighting fixtures were built to mimic the different hours of the day above ground, and a private tunnel once connected the bunker to Henderson's office building across the street — an annex that later served as headquarters for Howard Hughes's Summa Corporation, per the Review-Journal's reporting.
A $10 Million Price Tag, and a Death Inside
Henderson spent about $10 million building the underground estate, a figure Bagans's team says is equivalent to roughly $68 million in today's dollars. Henderson died of a heart attack inside the Underground House in 1983, five years after it was completed.
The property has bounced through a volatile string of sales and listings in the decades since. It sold for $1.3 million in 1990 and $2 million in 2005, according to Shelter Realty. The Stasis Foundation bought it for $1.15 million in 2014, then listed the mansion for $18 million in 2019 — a figure Money.com's account instead ties to 2020 — before the asking price fell to $5.9 million, reflecting the range of offers the property had received since hitting the market, per Shelter Realty. Listing records reviewed by Presenting Vegas show the home relisted for $5.9 million on Aug. 29, 2025, before it returned to the market later in 2025 at $8.5 million, the Review-Journal reports.
Pop Culture Cameos Beneath the Surface
Despite its secrecy, the bunker has made it into mainstream pop culture. Imagine Dragons shot the video for its 2021 single “Monday” inside the property, and MrBeast has also filmed there, according to the outlet's reporting.
Bagans said he did not initially set out to buy the property because it was haunted, but described heavy mysteries associated with it and its previous owners. He called the estate part of Cold War history and Las Vegas's atomic age, and said visitors will be immersed in the property's many layers once it opens. He intends to preserve the house and its history, investigate unresolved mysteries at the property, and use the site for an original documentary feature.
Property descriptions of the estate's size have varied: the Review-Journal cites roughly 16,000 square feet, while Presenting Vegas lists the estate at 16,936 square feet on 1.05 acres, a discrepancy the available records do not resolve. What is consistent across accounts is the scale of Bagans's ambition for the site — transforming a private doomsday retreat into something the public can finally walk through.
